


Crown Me Already

by redfiona



Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, OPI Summer Challenge, Octavian's sister issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 00:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfiona/pseuds/redfiona
Summary: In three days, they will crown him with a garland of laurels.





	Crown Me Already

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [burglebezzlement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement) in the [opisummerchallenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/opisummerchallenge) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> Crown Me Already
> 
> (Any fandom welcome!)

In three days, they will crown him with a garland of laurels.

He has waited for this, with a mask of patience for most of the time. It doesn't do for people to know you're planning something.

He has no desire for the title of Emperor, nor will he take it, but he wants the power of it. There shouldn't be an emperor. Empires lead to tyranny or dissolution, or both. Rome deserves a strong, moral leader, no, Rome needs it, or else it will slip into degeneracy, if it's not more than halfway there already.

He is the best option. He has been for years. He wouldn't say that he always has been, but it has been a long time since he wasn't. He wonders, sometimes, idly, because things cannot be changed, what would have happened if Caesar lived.

He compares his memories of the man with other people's memories, and with those standards held up for leaders, of men with power. He tries not to let his sentiment for his uncle cloud his vision. It's difficult though. He remembers Caesar fondly. A man with weaknesses, like all men, but a great man nonetheless. And he would have been greater still with Octavian by his side.

He likes to imagine a world where Caesar wasn't killed, where he would have had time to fully learn the systems of men under Caesar's guidance. Octavian knows his weaknesses - he is a physical coward, he hasn't got the skill of getting men to fight for him, never mind die for him - but those would have been masked under Caesar's tutelage.

Maybe he would even have learned the knack of it himself.

But probably not. It seemed to be an in-born talent, not something you could learn. Why had a man like Antony had been blessed with an excess of it and he none? It might have been evidence that the Gods played sport with mortals. Because Antony had all the gifts that Octavian lacked, and what a waste that was. The man was indolent, more beast than human, and thought more with what was between his legs than what was between his ears.

Or had thought, really.

Antony and the Egyptian queen are dead. Their desiccated corpses will decorate his carriage in three days’ time.

Antony had wiped off the make up before the end, died a Roman. It wouldn't do for a victory procession. So Octavian had his men repaint Antony. Watched them as they made him up to match his queen; hair, eyes, cheeks and nails.

Octavian thought he understood hatred, he'd felt it for boys who were stronger than him and rubbed his face in that fact. He'd felt it for anyone who touched his sister. But that was reasonable and rational in comparison to what he felt for Antony. He hated Antony for all his gifts, for the way he wasted them (he had Octavia, how dare he waste her), for the way that waste had robbed Octavian of what remained of his youth. And his ideals. Octavian used to have such ideals. He would have hated the man he's become, had to become because of Antony and his unreliability and inability to do what was necessary for the good of Rome.

Octavian's never once wanted to be emperor but he knows it is his duty. So he has done everything in his power to become the emperor, in all but name. In this one thing, he is his mother's son. He has fought, he has crawled, he has plotted, and he will win. It's what they do.

In three days he will be crowned with a garland of laurels. He has been waiting since Actium, since Philippi, since Caesar's death, thanks to his mother, he's been waiting for this since his birth.


End file.
